The Lair of the Emerald Serpent

Due to the evil goblins chopping our holidays, Izzie missed out on observing two most favorite rituals - New Year’s Eve sunset at Cottesloe Beach and the New Year’s Night fireworks by the river. So was going to make sure that at least the serpent tenth birthday did not go unmarked. There was the pesky problem of the public holiday meaning that watching the sunset from anywhere but the Lair would mean being stranded as most buses have their bed time at the ridiculous hour of 8pm
Figured it would also mean that the arts centre would be crowded as it was the last time 2nd January was on a Monday back in 2006. That was a disgustingly hot and muggy day with intermittent sea breezes

But unlike then, did not have a week’s holiday so had the whole public holiday bus schedule to contend with after work and then pottering off for the afternoon adventures
Keeping the New Year’s resolution in mind of first checking out available resources rather than running off to the shops to get stuff, put a little picnic together of bread, crackers, cheese and the remaining half of the bottle of wine from the pretend new year’s eve picnic at the beach on Friday.

So got the bus to the Lair after work, scrubbed the scales, packed the picnic and pottered off to catch the 2.15 bus. One bus later got to the lunatic asylum just after 3pm.
Got to the gates and noticed that not only were they closed but there was a big fat chain and padlock wrapped around them. Izzie was most peeved indeed. Had been looking forward to this day for a good few weeks and had not expected a twist like this

Right next to the gate is a big black and white centre proclaiming “Fremantle Arts Centre - open 10am-5pm 7 days a week”. And in smaller print - closed Good Friday, Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year’s Day

There was no notice whatsoever on the gate proclaiming why the place was closed. So decides to take a peek up at the vehicle entry gate which was open.
Sat in the gorgeous grounds under the plane trees but an inner voice whispered that these beasties are not to be trusted and would be better off sitting up the top end in view of the gate in case the little freaks decided to lock the place up.

Sure enough, hardly five minutes sitting there and some slimy security guard sorts comes up and says that the Izzie needs to get out as he will be locking the place soon.
He knew nothing at all about why the place was closed and was ‘just following orders’
So that was the end of an afternoon of squiggling, reading and nibbling on cheese and sipping red wine. Dragged our little picnic all this way for nothing and ended up having it back in the lair around sunset

Did visit two cafes instead but none with the magical atmosphere and nostalgic associations. Turned out half the cafes were closing early and charging 10-15% public holiday surcharges
So there was no point in lingering. Could not even stay for the sunset due to the limited bus services on public holidays so just left around 6pm and was back at the Lair for just after 7pm

Must go and visit the arts centre website and see if they bothered posting there that they would be observing unusual opening hours. It’s just plain bad manners not to have some note of explanation posted on the gate.
This day will not be a public holiday in 2013 and will have jumped two days to Wednesday. It will be interesting to see what evil schemes they have plotted for their opening hours between now and then - maybe two weeks off for Christmas or something

But some of the magic must have rubbed off. Was a bit peeved but avoided going into one of those gloomy doomy ‘princess of pity parties’ mode and managed to remain in the present moment in spite of the whole purpose of the visit being one of unadulterated nostalgia